This reminded me, however, of another subject with which I am uncomfortable, and that is the curse of dark skin on the Lamanites. Perhaps it is having been raised in the 1960’s, in the midst of the civil rights movement, but the idea of “dark skin” being a curse bothers me. Has any general authority discussed this issue? I sometimes suspect that the characterization of “white” and “fair” as positive and good, and of “dark” as negative and bad, is a metaphor for cleanliness and filthiness, but that does not explain why people who are not “filthy” would bear the symbol of filthiness. Can you help me out?
Dennis, from Virginia
Dear Dennis,
It is altogether natural to try to make sense of the world from the perspective of our own experience. However, where we are dealing with the things of God and eternity, they surpass the judgement criteria that we build up out of our own experience. The scriptures and the words of the prophets are the standard by which all other things are judged. The descendants of Cain were blessed with a black skin and the descendants of Laman and Lemual were cursed with a dark skin. So that is evidence in itself that no curse is intrinsically related to skin color. The purpose of the curse on the Lamanites was to make them immediately identifiable to the Nephites so that there would be no interracial mixing. This was important because the descendants of Laman and Lemual inherited the seeds of disobedience from their parents, figuratively speaking, “to the third and forth generation.”
The color, white, is a symbol of purity. The Father and the Son have been described as being white in their appearance. Again, a white cloth is no more pure that a dark cloth, so purity is not in the whiteness, but whiteness is in the purity.
-Gramps
